The New Mexico Senate Judiciary Committee today followed
the lead of its House counterpart on March 12 in tabling SB 746 / HB 764,
the "Little Red Riding Hood" bill, which attacked the Mexican
gray wolf reintroduction program by proclaiming that wolves have a "propensity
to threaten or inflict death or grievous bodily harm."

The Senate committee's vote effectively kills the bill,
which sought to compel federal, state and tribal biologists to sign admissions
of liability for "unlawful" behavior by wolves. Such behavior
included killing a human, livestock or pet, "threatening" to
kill any of the above, or leaving federal lands.

It also would have authorized anyone to "euthanize"
a wolf exhibiting such behaviors.

According to testimony at today's hearing and at last
Wednesday's, that provision stood for state sanction of an open season
against wolves. Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity
in Pinos Altos, New Mexico, said that poaching of wolves is already a
serious problem and that passing such a law would not immunize poachers
from federal prosecution.

Darry Dolan, who lives on an inholding in the Gila
National Forest, told committee members the bill is not needed and that
wolves were welcome and not a threat. Rinda Metz, a volunteer at the Gila
Cliff Dwellings National Monument, said that visitors thrill to hear wolves
and that some are disappointed if wolves are not present.

No witnesses spoke at today's hearing in favor of the
bill, except for the bill's sponsor, Sen. Steve Komadina (R - Corrales).

Currently, around forty Mexican gray wolves in eight
packs roam the Gila National Forest in New Mexico and the adjoining Apache
National Forest in Arizona. Two of the packs, with an estimated six wolves,
inhabit New Mexico.

In some cases, two generations of wolves have been
born in the wild -- representing an important milestone in self-reliance
from a population that began in captivity.

The Mexican wolf became endangered because of a decades
long U.S. Fish and Wildlife-sponsored binational poisoning and trapping
campaign. That campaign ended after passage of the Endangered Species
Act in 1973, and the last five lobos still alive in Mexico were subsequently
captured alive for an emergency captive breeding program to save the subspecies.

Reintroduction began in March, 1998, and since then
wolves have faced threats from federal authorities enforcing rules against
preying on livestock and against straying off the two national forests
that comprise the recovery area. Four wolves recaptured from the wild
over the past two years have been paired up recently in captivity and
are due to be released in New Mexico this spring as two new packs.

Those wolves, as their previous experiences in the
wild and with humanity have taught them, face a formidable array of dangers,
including livestock carcasses that habituate them to consider domestic
animals as food, and the odorless boundaries to their recovery area.

They will not face, however, the prospect of state
authorities granting every New Mexico citizen a wolf hunting licence.
And residents of lobo country in southwest New Mexico who journeyed to
Santa Fe to speak their mind are grateful for that.